Review: Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

Since she’d been on the outside, she’d survived an Aether storm, she’d had a knife held to her throat, and she’d seen men murdered. This was worse.

Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland—known as The Death Shop—are slim. If the cannibals don’t get her, the violent, electrified energy storms will. She’s been taught that the very air she breathes can kill her. Then Aria meets an Outsider named Perry. He’s wild—a savage—and her only hope of staying alive.

A hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as sheltered and fragile—everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs Aria’s help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption. Opposites in nearly every way, Aria and Perry must accept each other to survive. Their unlikely alliance forges a bond that will determine the fate of all who live under the never sky.

In her enthralling debut, Veronica Rossi sends readers on an unforgettable adventure set in a world brimming with harshness and beauty.

Review:

I don’t give out many A grades, but Under the Never Sky earned a great big one! Once I picked this book up, I could not put it back down, and I read it in two sittings. While I was sick, no less, and when I didn’t even really feel like reading. That’s how good this post-apocalyptic/ dystopian novel is, and I think that it is strong enough to appeal to both teen and adult readers. Diving into the story is like jumping into quicksand; sorry, but you aren’t going to be able to crawl back out until after you read the very last page.

I don’t think I can adequately express how much I loved this book, or why I found it so compelling, especially without getting spoilery, so I’ll touch on the aspects that made the biggest impression on me. About two chapters in, I was engaged in the story, but I was still able to be distracted by the little things in life – like hunger and the need to use the restroom. That went away about 100 pages in. I was not moving, not for anything other than the walls collapsing around me. Even then, the first thing I would grab after Buu is the book. That baby wasn’t going to leave my sight!

When I first started the book, I did not like Aria. She has been privileged and pampered her whole life; she has never wanted for anything. Inside the dome, she has everything she could ever want. With the impressive technology available to her, she can travel to virtual realms that seem real in every way; touch, taste, smell – there’s an almost infinite amount of virtual reality worlds where she can visit with just a thought, sending a sliver of herself somewhere else whenever the mood strikes her. Unlike Perry, her reluctant rescuer in the Death Shop, Aria has never suffered from a lack of food or water, and she has never been in mortal danger, conditions that Perry has to live with every day.

Their first encounter outside of the dome is not pleasant. Aria is not pleasant. Aria has a smug, elitist attitude that made me want to smack her. Perry saves her life a number of times, but can Aria even utter the words “thank you” to him? Nope, instead she berates him and calls him a savage. Sigh. I was worried that Aria would grate on my nerves all the way through the book.

Then something wonderful happened, and it’s something that doesn’t happen very often. Halfway through the book, when I thought back on how far Perry and Aria had traveled, on how far I had traveled with them, I realized something – she had changed, and now she seemed like a really good friend. Almost a BFF kind of friend. I liked her! I liked her spunk and her drive and her stubbornness. She accepted her faults, and she weighed her behavior and her attitude towards the Outside, and she found that Perry wasn’t such a savage after all. She found that he was noble and brave and that his word meant everything to him. And to her, because Perry pledged to help her find her missing mother in exchange for her Smarteye. What a wonderful moment for Aria, and what a wonderful moment for me. This is why I read in the first place – to get caught up in the trials and the challenges of characters who have somehow come to life for me. To get sucked so far into a plot that it consumes my every waking thought, and keeps me mulling over the storyline long after I have finished it.

As I approached the end, I felt something else; sadness and regret. Perry and Aria seemed like a part of me, and I wasn’t ready to let them go. Their feelings for each other had me convinced that they were meant for each other, despite their great differences. Perry would be difficult for any woman to live with, because he can actually smell emotions. He can smell happiness and joy, as well as sorrow and hurt. He can smell the untruths that hide behind words. What would that be like? What would it be like to actually be able to smell what the people around you are feeling, to taste their emotions and instantly know the truth of their actions? For the magical duration of Under the Never Sky, I could actually do that.

I was lucky enough to read the book back in October, before all of the reviews started bombarding the internet. I had no preconceived idea of what the book was even about. All I knew was that it was a post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel written by a debut author. How wonderful it was for me to become acquainted with the characters and the setting with no expectations. I even kind of dared the book to entertain me. It did. In spades. It also left me excited about reading again, in a way I haven’t felt in a long while. Now the race is on! What other gems will I discover as I search for the next almost flawless read?